Hooters Casino Hotel recently opened a video-game bar, following the success of downtown’s Insert Coin(s).
Joystixx is a 21-and-over lounge just off the Strip that features console video gaming, classic arcade games and VIP booths with built-in flat screen TVs. Players can choose from new game titles such as Battlefield 3, Madden NFL 2012 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 or classics such as Golden Tee, Pac-Man, Galaga, NASCAR Driver and Guitar Hero while “gamer girls” bring them drinks. The bar’s tag line is the “hottest new place to score in Vegas.”
Joystixx comes online less than a year after Insert Coin(s), a gamers’ lounge on Fremont Street with a nearly identical business model. The “barcade,” as owner Chris LaPorte calls it, has been a smash success, attracting 2,700 people for its April opening and boasting lines around the block every weekend night.
It isn’t surprising that the concept of a gaming bar has taken off. Video games are a $50 billion-a-year industry which experts project will nearly double in value over the next five years. An estimated 70 percent of Americans play.
Joystixx, which debuted Nov. 11, is open 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays. A call to Hooters for more information about the lounge was not immediately returned.